THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 09 APRIL
‘No-fly-list’ under government consideration, says Minister
Air passenger representatives welcome move
•Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said the government was considering the introduction of a ‘no fly list’ to deal with unruly passengers.
•“The Ministry of Civil Aviation is strengthening rules so that a national no-fly list can be implemented, such incidents can be prevented, and safety improved,” Mr. Sinha tweeted, referring to the incident on March 23 in which Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad’s allegedly beat up an Air India employee, leading to his ban on flying.
•“Air travellers should note that safety and security of passengers and crew is our paramount priority. Unruly or disruptive behaviour will result in severe consequences. This includes police action for a specific incident as well as being placed on a no-fly list,” the Minister said.
•Domestic airlines have witnessed 53 cases of unruly behaviour by passengers between July 2016 and March 2017.
•Air passenger representatives welcomed the move on a ‘no-fly list’ – a practice followed by airlines in Europe and the United States.
•“This is a well-established international practice and is an urgent necessity for a country like ours where first time flyers are nearly 20-25%,” said D. Sudhakara Reddy, national president of Air Passengers Association of India.
Advisory in nature
•Experts said the ‘no-fly-list’ should be advisory in nature and not imposed on airlines. “No-fly-list should not be punitive in nature, it should facilitate airlines to take the right precaution,” said Mark D Martin, founder and CEO of Martin Consulting.
•He said it should be the prerogative of airlines to fly passengers named on the no-fly-list and that they should be allowed to charge an extra fee from such passengers.
•Airlines abroad have their own rules for dealing with unruly passengers and maintain their own ‘no fly list.’
Delhi, Dhaka exchange 22 deals
India promises on Teesta, delivers on $5 billion line of credit, defence MoUs
•Stepping up cooperation in the fields of connectivity, energy and defence, India extended lines of credit worth $5 billion to Bangladesh after a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as the two countries exchanged 22 agreements here on Saturday.
•However, despite the presence of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the ceremony that included the inauguration of a trans-border rail line, the two sides were unable to make any progress on the contentious Teesta water sharing agreement that Ms. Banerjee has opposed.
•“This (Teesta) is important for India, for Bangladesh and for India-Bangladesh relationship,” Mr. Modi said after the meeting. He added, “I firmly believe that it is only my government and Excellency Sheikh Hasina, your government, that can and will find an early solution to Teesta Water Sharing.”
Talks on trade
•Apart from the water issues, both sides agreed to work together on ways to advance issues like trade, connectivity, and regional cooperation. “The two Prime Ministers emphasised the advantages of sub-regional cooperation in the areas of power, water resources, trade, transit and connectivity for mutual benefit. In this context, they noted the progress made by the Joint Working Groups on Sub-Regional Cooperation between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN) on Water Resources Management and Power/Hydropower and on Trade, Transit and Connectivity,” the Joint Statement issued at the end of bilateral discussion stated.
•A major aspect of the visit has been the defence component which includes an MoU on defence framework, and a $500 million Line of Credit for defence procurement for the Bangladesh military forces.
•Explaining the military Line of Credit extended by India, Bangladeshi foreign secretary Shahidul Haq said, “The line of credit for military procurement is friendly, flexible and liberal and we are not bound to use it to source our supplies only from Indian companies.”
•Explaining the details of the framework agreement, Mr Haq said in a press briefing that the framework agreement would include, “annual consultations”.
•That apart, two different MoUs were signed between defence training institutes of India and Bangladesh. Both sides also sealed an MoU coastal route and protocol route.
•Bilateral technology cooperation also was boosted by the commitment to support civil nuclear research between two sides. “the leaders welcomed the signing of the inter- Governmental Agreement for cooperation in the field of Civil Nuclear Energy and other agreements related to nuclear cooperation”, the Joint Statement stated.
•A highpoint of the bilateral talks held on Saturday was the Line of Credit. “This time around, the LoC is for the amount of $4.5 billion. It is the largest, or perhaps among the largest we have done for a country on a single occasion,” informed foreign secretary S. Jaishankar explaining that the LoC would be used to build 17 projects including port upgradation work in Mongla, Chittagong and Paira ports.
•The government also took the opportunity to showcase the bilateral ties as a testimony to India’s official policy of “neighbourhood first.” “If there is one example where the neighbourhood first policy has yielded good result, it is in case of Bangladesh,” said Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar saying that India wants to share prosperity with its South Asian neighbours.
•Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Hasina also spoke of increasing security cooperation between two sides. “We will work for peaceful borders and zero tolerance of terrorism,” said the Bangladeshi leader while Mr Modi indicated at Pakistan in his speech in his speech in honour of the Muktijoddhas of 1971.
•“There is a mentality in South Asia opposed to the approach of India and Bangladesh, to promote development; this mentality nurtures and inspires terrorism,” said Mr Modi criticising the policy that promotes terror as a state policy
•Both sides also supported international campaign against terrorism under the umbrella of the United Nations General Assembly. “They (India and Bangladesh) called on the international community to end selective or partial approaches to combating terrorism and, in this regard, jointly called for the early finalization and adoption of a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism by the UNGA.
India, Mongolia ‘cross swords’
The two nations hold military exercise even as the Dalai Lama is on a visit to Tawang
•While the diplomatic world was fixated on the visit of the 14th Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh, not very far from there a small elite contingent of Indian and Mongolian troops began a two-week joint military exercise away from media glare.
•On Saturday, even as Dalai Lama was in Tawang, the Indian Army made public the joint exercise, named Nomadic Elephant. The timing of the exercise may be a mere coincidence, but assumes significance given last December China mounted economic sanctions on Mongolia after it refused to cancel the visit of Dalai Lama to the Buddhist majority country.
Nomadic Elephant
•The Army said the 12th “iteration of Indo-Mongolian Joint Military Exercise Nomadic Elephant is presently under way at Vairengte from 05 April 2017 till 18 April 2017.” Vairengte in Mizoram houses the elite Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School of the Indian Army.
•The Mongolian Army is represented by nine officers and 36 soldiers of the elite 084 Special Forces Task Battalion while the Indian Army is represented by a contingent of three officers, four JCOs and 39 soldiers of the Jammu & Kashmir Rifles, the Army said.
•It said the exercise was aimed at training the troops in counter insurgency & counter terrorism operations under the United Nations mandate.
•“The joint training will also lay emphasis on conducting operations by a joint subunit, comprising of troops from both the armies, in adverse operational conditions aimed at enhancing the interoperability between the two armies,” the army said.
The China factor
•India-Mongolia relations have been on an upswing in recent years, with the latter turning to New Delhi in December 2016 for help after China hiked transit tariffs on Mongolian trucks, as part of its action to protest Dalai Lama’s visit to Mongolia.
•“We are aware of the difficult budgetary situation that Mongolia is facing due to various factors including high cost of servicing of debt raised by them in the past,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in New Delhi on December.
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Mongolia in May 2015 had extended a credit line of $1 billion to Mongolia.
•The India-Mongolian bilateral ties have been growing against the backdrop of the communist country’s growing influence, and New Delhi’s efforts to find a balance.
Calling the shots
•The Indo-Mongolian military exercise is taking place just about 800 kilometers away from Tawang—second highest seat of Tibetan Buddhism and home to a historic monastery—where Dalai Lama on Saturday said his followers, and not China, will decide the future of his office.
•On China’s insistence that the next Dalai Lama be born in China, he said his followers will decide whether the tradition continues or not, or if his successor should be a woman.
•“Let China first come clear on its theory on rebirth,” he said.
What is the lowdown on sharing of Teesta waters?
What is it?
•Sharing the waters of the Teesta river, which originates in the Himalayas and flows through Sikkim and West Bengal to merge with the Brahmaputra in Assam and (Jamuna in Bangladesh), is perhaps the most contentious issue between two friendly neighbours, India and Bangladesh. The river covers nearly the entire floodplains of Sikkim, while draining 2,800 sq km of Bangladesh, governing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. For West Bengal, Teesta is equally important, considered the lifeline of half-a-dozen districts in North Bengal. Bangladesh has sought an “equitable” distribution of Teesta waters from India, on the lines of the Ganga Water Treaty of 1996, but to no avail. The failure to ink a deal had its fallout on the country’s politics, putting the ruling Awami League in a spot.
How did it come about?
•Following a half-hearted deal in 1983, when nearly equal division of water was proposed, the countries hit a roadblock. The transient agreement could not be implemented. Talks resumed after the Awami League returned to power in 2008 and the former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Dhaka in 2011. Officials were directed to conclude the “[interim] agreements” on a “fair and equitable basis,” as per the joint statement. In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhaka generated more ebullient lines: “deliberations were under way involving all the stakeholders…[to conclude the agreement] as soon as possible.” As both countries are gearing up for another general election, Teesta remains an unfinished project and one of the key stakeholders — West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — is yet to endorse the deal. Her objection is connected to “global warming.”
•Many of the glaciers on the Teesta basin have retreated, says Strategic Foresight Group, a Mumbai-based think-tank. “Estimates suggested that the Teesta river has a mean annual flow of approximately 60 billion cubic metre (BCM). A significant amount of this water flows during the wet season, between June and September. The importance of the flow and the seasonal variation of this river is felt during the lean season (from October to April/May) as the average flow is about 500 million cubic metre (MCM) per month. Consequently, there are floods during monsoons and droughts during the dry periods,” the 2013 report said.
•The West Bengal Chief Minister opposed an arrangement in 2011, by which India would get 42.5% and Bangladesh 37.5% of the water during the lean season, and the plan was shelved.
Why does it matter?
•India witnessed a surge in insurgency in the northeast during the rule of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) from 2001 to 2005. A new policy to befriend the BNP backfired. Bangladesh allegedly sheltered insurgents engaged in anti-India activities, and nearly all the Home Ministry-level talks ended without agreement, and India had to increase the security budget for the northeast. In a couple of years of assuming office in 2008, the Awami League targeted insurgent camps and handed over the rebels to India. As India’s security establishment heaved a sigh of relief, the relationship improved on multiple fronts. But in 2017, the Awami League is on a sticky wicket. It will be facing one of its toughest elections in two years and water-sharing will be one of the key issues. As the former Bangladesh High Commissioner in Delhi, Tariq Karim, put it, even if most of the agreements are delivered, many in Bangladesh will “only ask why has Teesta not been done.” The Awami League will have to have an answer.
What next?
•The answer, according to leading Bangladeshi hydrologist and architect of Ganga Water Treaty Ainun Nishat, is embedded in the construction of giant artificial reservoirs, where the monsoon water can be stored for the lean season. The reservoirs need to be built in India as the country has some mountain-induced sites favourable to hosting dams with reservoirs, unlike Bangladesh, Dr. Nishat told this correspondent earlier. Ms. Banerjee, however, cannot be sidestepped as water is a State subject. But the silver lining is the presence of stakeholders — at the highest level — in Delhi this week. Hopefully, they will be able to strike gold by the next general election in Bangladesh.
IISc designs a novel graphene electrical conductor
The new way of making graphene with a perfect edge structure was the key to success
•Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru have been able to experimentally produce a new type of electrical conductor that was theoretically predicted nearly 20 years ago.
•A team led by Arindam Ghosh from the Department of Physics, IISc successful produced graphene that is single- or a few-layers thick to conduct current along one particular edge — the zigzag edge. The zigzag edge of graphene layer has a unique property: It allows flow of charge without any resistance at room temperature and above.
•“This is the first we found the perfect edge structure in graphene and demonstrated electrical conductance along the edge,” says Prof. Ghosh. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
•A few-layers-thick graphene that conducts current along one edge does not experience any resistance and so can lead to realising power-efficient electronics and quantum information transfer, even at room temperature.
Getting an edge
•Many groups over the world have been trying to access these edges since the emergence of graphene in 2004, but have been largely unsuccessful because when current flows through graphene, it flows through both the edge as well as the bulk. “We succeeded in this endeavour by creating the bulk part of graphene extremely narrow (less than 10 nanometre thick), and hence highly resistive, thus forcing the current to flow through the edge alone,” he says.
•“While the bulk is totally insulating, the edge alone has the ability to conduct because of the unique quantum mechanics of the edge. Because of the zigzag orientation of carbon atoms [resulting from the hexagonal lattice], the electron wave on each carbon atom overlaps and forms a continuous train of wave along the edge. This makes the edge conducting,” explains Prof. Ghosh. The edge will remain conductive even if it is very long but has to be chemically and structurally pristine.
•In the past, others researchers had tried making narrow graphene through chemical methods. But the use of chemicals destroys the edges. So the IISc team resorted to mechanical exfoliation to make graphene that are single- and few-layers thick. They used a small metal robot to peel the graphene from pyrolytic graphite. “If you take a metal tip and crash it on graphite and take it back, a part of the graphite will stick to the tip. The peeling was done slowly and gradually (in steps of 0.1 Å),” says Amogh Kinikar from the Department of Physics at IISc and the first author of the paper.
Effect of chemicals
•The exfoliation was carried out at room temperature but under vacuum and the electrical conductance was measured at the time of exfoliation before the pristine nature of the edge was affected. The unsatisfied bonds of the carbon atoms make them highly reactive and they tend to react with hydrogen present in the air. “The edges conduct without any resistance as long as the edges don’t come in contact with any chemicals,” says Prof. Ghosh. “It is very easy to passivate [make the surface unreactive by coating the surface with a thin inert layer] the edges to prevent contamination [when narrow graphene is used for commercial purposes].”
•As the carbon atoms have a hexagonal structure, exfoliation is by default at 30 degree angle and one of the edges has a zigzag property. “The steplike changes observed for small values of conductance when other variables were changed were surprising. Through theoretical work we were able to link this to edge modes in graphene,” says Prof. H.R.Krishnamurthy from the Department of Physics, IISc and one of the authors of the paper.
•There are currently several chemical methods to produce very narrow graphene nanoribbons. But these chemicals tend to destroy the edges. “So the challenge is to produce graphene nanoribbons using chemicals that do not destroy the edges,” Prof. Ghosh says. “We believe that this successful demonstration of the dissipation-less edge conduction will act as great incentive to develop new chemical methods to make high-quality graphene nano-ribbons or nano-strips with clean edges.”
